Successful Low-round draft picks in your OOTP saves

[darkcloud4579]

Bearing in mind that everyone plays differently and alas, might not have an especially long draft.

I'm always curious to see low round guys who are successful in the game over time. OOTP has gotten much better with this in recent years.

Do you all have any stories (pics, preferably) of low-round guys who have been successful in your leagues. Don't have to be HOFers to quality, but the lower the rounds the better.

I just did a 100-round draft, but I don't do those every year, just every so often when talent gets way too low and I was intrigued by this notion of low round all-stars.

Anyone?

I wish there was a better way to track these outcomes, too. Right now, you just kind of have to scour the team's draft history.

[IanIachimoe]

good thread, I'll look when I get home.

I make every pick of the 35 round amateur draft, there has got to be one or two in there (I hope).

[Mets52]

I was going to make a thread like this a few days ago. I too make every draft pick of the 35 rounds. Just recently I've had a 23rd round draft pick who turned into a potential HOF player. Outfielder first, now playing 3B (I am OF strong and he can play anywhere.) 54 HR season, 400+ for career so far. I am really happy about that pick.

By far the deepest I've drafted talent like that, very cool.

[Westheim]

Brownie time!

The Raccoons took Nick Brown in the 11th round in the draft, which at that point in my dynasty lasted only 12 rounds. He was the #293 selection from a 360-strong draft pool. Back then my draft class roundup listed him half-heartedly as a "lefty with a slider", just one step above noting that he was able to breath, see, and walk.

Well, the lefty with a slider showed the sport for sure!

Fake SI article from my dynasty thread: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...postcount=2505

And various screenshots with him that I have been able to locate at short notice:

[BradG223]

I don't have any stories in particular, but I have just recently discovered how fun it is to play around with the export data. This league has 40 teams and does a 23 round draft.
The five guys I highlighted are probably the best examples of all time greats drafted waaaaay too late.

[ry1220]

Originally Posted by BradG223

I don't have any stories in particular, but I have just recently discovered how fun it is to play around with the export data. This league has 40 teams and does a 23 round draft.
The five guys I highlighted are probably the best examples of all time greats drafted waaaaay too late.

This is cool. How would I go about doing something like this?

[Qeltar]

Look how sharp that knee is. Wow. Really does confirm that the first few picks matter most, and that after the second round (or even earlier) you are basically buying lottery tickets. (Which is why I try to get picks as thrown-ins on trades...)

[BradG223]

I made that using Tableau. I think Tableau public is free to use, and if you are a college student you can get a free license.

I did an export of player career batting and player career pitching and merged the files by player ID, year, and team. Then I merge those with the player export (where draft information is stored) by player ID. You have to fix up the data a little bit, but I don't think it is too much work. I usually get to what I'm looking for just playing around a little bit.

I've been making leagues just for the exports. While graphs like the one I attached may not be the prettiest they are a blast to make, and in my opinion make it much easier to understand the history of the league.

[darkcloud4579]

My goodness, you're going to make me want to export all of my data now and go plotting like crazy. Those graphs are awesome, thanks for sharing.

[The Yurpman]

Not this year but in OOTP 18 I drafted a college RP in the 32nd round out of 35 rounds. When drafted he was rated 20/25 for overall and potential. After a full season in rookie ball his ratings skyrocketed to 35/60. His second year in the lower level of the minors, same thing. Ratings went up drastically again. Beginning of his third pro season he was rated 55/75 and I decided to give him a chance in the bullpen as a middle reliever. Long story short, he ended up becoming my closer and a season later was an all-star CP and ended up having a great career.

I find it's easiest to find some worthwhile RP/CP late in the drafts compared to other positions. After round 20 or so I focus on drafting players that either have one or two pretty good things going for them (stuff/control, contact/speed, etc.) and/or players that have high work ethic. It seems to work as I can usually find one or two players after round 20ish, per draft, that eventually have the talent to play in the big league at some level.

EDIT: I NEVER let the AI pick any of my players. I would recommend this to everyone, pick all of your players yourself. The AI will pick players that are "impossible" to sign, which is just a wasted pick because you don't get any compensation for these players outside the top five rounds. Also, I find the AI will draft players in the later rounds that are average-below average at everything as opposed to what I explained above; finding a guy who is pretty good at one or two things and not so good at the rest. Just something I've come to realize playing since OOTP 12.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by BradG223

I don't have any stories in particular, but I have just recently discovered how fun it is to play around with the export data. This league has 40 teams and does a 23 round draft.
The five guys I highlighted are probably the best examples of all time greats drafted waaaaay too late.

I would really like to hear the story of that late first-rounder that is quite visibly sitting on something like -14 WAR

[BradG223]

Originally Posted by Westheim

I would really like to hear the story of that late first-rounder that is quite visibly sitting on something like -14 WAR

That would be one Mr. Joey Merrell.
A pitcher drafted 13th overall by El Paso in 2081; Joey Baseball was a below replacement level pitcher and a much worse hitter. This switch hitter is capable of striking out from either side of the plate. Despite all the negatives he's an all-star (2096, and only God knows how), and earned over $15 million.

Two notes. One is this league is based off 1987 stats; the other is a negative aspect of the combined pitching and batting WAR is that pitchers are going to be dragged back as they are all, for the most part, poor at the plate. Merrell is all around terrible though.

[Tyler87898]

Originally Posted by BradG223

I made that using Tableau. I think Tableau public is free to use, and if you are a college student you can get a free license.

I did an export of player career batting and player career pitching and merged the files by player ID, year, and team. Then I merge those with the player export (where draft information is stored) by player ID. You have to fix up the data a little bit, but I don't think it is too much work. I usually get to what I'm looking for just playing around a little bit.

I've been making leagues just for the exports. While graphs like the one I attached may not be the prettiest they are a blast to make, and in my opinion make it much easier to understand the history of the league.

Do you think you can explain step by step on how to make the graph you made in your previous comment? I have never worked with exporting stats in OOTP.

Am I right in just clicking the "export player stats" button and getting the 3 text files or is it "export data to csv"? If so, how do I merge them? I downloaded Tableau.

[BradG223]

Originally Posted by Tyler87898

Do you think you can explain step by step on how to make the graph you made in your previous comment? I have never worked with exporting stats in OOTP.

Am I right in just clicking the "export player stats" button and getting the 3 text files or is it "export data to csv"? If so, how do I merge them? I downloaded Tableau.

I think that export player stats buttons works soley for current season stats, but I could be wrong.

The way I go about it is, like you said, going to the almanac page, and activating "Yearly CSV Dump", and in profile make sure that at the very least these files are selected (see attatched image 1).

At the end of the year the items selected in your profile will be placed in the "Dump" folder in the save game folder.

After that you load those three files into Tableau, going into "more...", and selecting the files. From there you are able to join the files. You really don't have to merge the stas files unless you are are going to be comparing batters and pitchers in some fashion. Be careful when you are building the graphs because you need to filter out a lot, (league ID, split ID).

[Tyler87898]

Originally Posted by BradG223

I think that export player stats buttons works soley for current season stats, but I could be wrong.

The way I go about it is, like you said, going to the almanac page, and activating "Yearly CSV Dump", and in profile make sure that at the very least these files are selected (see attatched image 1).

At the end of the year the items selected in your profile will be placed in the "Dump" folder in the save game folder.

After that you load those three files into Tableau, going into "more...", and selecting the files. From there you are able to join the files. You really don't have to merge the stas files unless you are are going to be comparing batters and pitchers in some fashion. Be careful when you are building the graphs because you need to filter out a lot, (league ID, split ID).

So, I opened the player.csv and career batting.csv in Tableau, and joined them (by intersection). I have no clue what to do now to filter out data and create some graphs.

[BradG223]

Originally Posted by Tyler87898

So, I opened the player.csv and career batting.csv in Tableau, and joined them (by intersection). I have no clue what to do now to filter out data and create some graphs.

So I imagine that you are at this point right now. If you click on "Sheet 1" in the bottom left (it may say something else as my sheets were already created) you will be brought to a sheet that has a structure for all the graphs you plan on making. From there on you can drag and drop information. Some of the data needs to be corrected. For example, I believe draft overall pick and position are listed as measurements, when they really are dimensions.

If you get to the point in the second image, I'd really just recommend playing around with it and learning through trial and error. I'm not a savant with it but I think I'm capable of making visualizations solid enough to display my leagues history.


Oh, apologies to Darkcloud for hijacking this thread, lol.

[Juggernt]

Amidst all this data I wonder if there's an answer to what are the factors common to the low-round picks who become stars? Is there a blend of abilities? A confluence of backgrounds? The data might tell us.

[BradG223]

Originally Posted by Juggernt

Amidst all this data I wonder if there's an answer to what are the factors common to the low-round picks who become stars? Is there a blend of abilities? A confluence of backgrounds? The data might tell us.

I wouldn't take this graph as fact whatsoever, but it looks like high school players are much more likely to be successful than college players. I think it is reasonable to assume high school players drafted have a higher ceiling, and a lower floor. This graph only looks at players who had a single at bat in the majors, so high school players may be less likely to make the majors for all we know.

[Tyler87898]

Originally Posted by BradG223

So I imagine that you are at this point right now. If you click on "Sheet 1" in the bottom left (it may say something else as my sheets were already created) you will be brought to a sheet that has a structure for all the graphs you plan on making. From there on you can drag and drop information. Some of the data needs to be corrected. For example, I believe draft overall pick and position are listed as measurements, when they really are dimensions.

If you get to the point in the second image, I'd really just recommend playing around with it and learning through trial and error. I'm not a savant with it but I think I'm capable of making visualizations solid enough to display my leagues history.


Oh, apologies to Darkcloud for hijacking this thread, lol.

Thanks for all the help. My last question (for now) is did you have to rename all the column names? Because I do not know what each one represents (though using your pictures and intuition I can guess some of them).

[BradG223]

Originally Posted by Tyler87898

Thanks for all the help. My last question (for now) is did you have to rename all the column names? Because I do not know what each one represents (though using your pictures and intuition I can guess some of them).

No problem, and I'm so sorry but I forgot to mention to select "Insert column names and csv headers" when selecting dump options.